


take time — take all the time you need

by timelxrd



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Fluff, One Shot, TLC, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, clownery, downtime, first 'i love you's, soft!Doc, thasmin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:35:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,377
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23954704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timelxrd/pseuds/timelxrd
Summary: Yaz and the Doctor take some much-needed downtime.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Comments: 18
Kudos: 59





	take time — take all the time you need

**Author's Note:**

  * For [timedork](https://archiveofourown.org/users/timedork/gifts).



> happy birthday mel!!!! i'll be forever grateful to you for introducing me to a bunch of great people and i hope you have a really great day! this is just a little something to show my appreciation!

Yaz halfway down the page when a quiet knock sounds against her bedroom door and blue-socked toes slip from cool blue-silver floors to deep purple carpet. 

“Can I come in?” her girlfriend hums under her breath, coatless and shoeless. There’s a crease in her forehead where the strap of her welding mask has imprinted itself against her skin and her braces hang loosely around her hips. Heedless of her question, she’s already halfway into the room. 

Yaz sits up slightly, crossing a bare, slim leg over the other. The Doctor eyes the movement up until the plaid of Yaz’s pyjama shorts. “You know you don’t have to ask, right?”

With a shrug, the Doctor moves to the drawer at her bedside and roots through, open in her thievery of Yaz’s clothing. “Whatcha reading?” 

“Frankenstein,” Yaz divulges, bookmarking the page in case she loses it. “Gotta be the fourth time I’ve read it now.”

“Brilliant choice, Yaz. Solid thirteen out of ten.” The Doctor turns her back to peel both shirts over her head in one go, replacing them rather quickly with her favourite of Yaz’s hoodies. When she bares a glance over her shoulder to find her watching on with a curl of her lip, the Doctor flushes pink to the tips of her ears. 

“Y’can keep reading. Don’t let me stop you,” the blonde insists, freeing herself from her blue trousers and replacing them with a pair of pink shorts. They’re not really her colour, but they’re soft and loose and they’re Yaz’s, so she doesn’t mind.

Yaz chuckles, caught out. “Can’t I admire my girlfriend once in a while?”

“Read to me,” the Doctor hums as she clambers onto the bed, flopping down next to her with a grunt. They’d been taking it easy the last few weeks, leaving the boys to return home for a short period. 

Yaz had insisted on respite after their most recent series of mishaps, misfortunes and exhaustion on the Doctor’s behalf. 

As she wriggles her way under one of Yaz’s arms and rests her head against her chest, the Doctor finds herself immensely grateful for her girlfriend’s patience. 

After allowing her to settle; a lithe thigh thrown over her hip and an arm bracketing her waist, Yaz starts to read. 

She’s just getting into the flow when an unsuccessfully muffled _crunch_ sounds from the Doctor’s direction. Yaz glances down to find her girlfriend munching happily away at a custard cream, the pocket of her hoodie — which she’d managed to fabricate into another dimension of depth altogether — dusted with biscuit crumbs. 

“You stopped,” the Doctor murmurs around a mouthful, pleading eyes lifting in question. “Why’d you stop?”

“Babe, we’ve talked about the _no crumbs in bed_ rule, haven’t we?” 

The Doctor pops the rest of the sweet treat past her lips and offers a mumble of apology. “S’rry Yath, got pekith. Keep readin’.”

With a fond roll of her eyes, Yaz winds an arm around her girlfriend’s waist. She settles her palm over her stomach and pats affectionately at the recent shapeliness it has gained. She quite likes it — perhaps a break from the running about has done her some good. And she knows, after all this, that the second they’re back into their hectic adventures, there’ll be no time to indulge. 

Either way, she quite likes the way she’s filled out her clothing, especially those pink shorts. 

While she reads, Yaz’s hand moves under her hoodie to stroke in slow caresses over her girlfriend’s stomach. Short nails scratch featherlight at her sides if only to earn a happy hum from the fatigued blonde, who curls closer for more. 

By the time her voice has grown hoarse, the Doctor has dozed off under her ministrations, lips parted slightly and features blissfully at ease. She’ll have to keep that trick in mind. 

Yaz sets the book silently aside and brushes a kiss against her temple, happy to observe her restful features until slumber makes her acquaintance. 

* * *

At breakfast the following morning, the Doctor hops onto the counter and swings her legs, plucking a custard cream from the pocket of her teal hoodie and biting into it. She parts her knees when Yaz comes to a stop before her, then closes them around her hips. “Doctor, you can’t have custard creams for every meal.”

“Why not?” the Doctor answers matter-of-factly, reaching back for the biscuit tin and taking inventory. A lone digestive sits at the bottom and _surely_ it would be mean to leave it on its lonesome?

It joins the half a dozen sitting in crumbs in the Doctor’s stomach in seconds. 

Yaz shakes her head, but it isn’t through annoyance. She gathers up the last spoonful of porridge and scoffs at her girlfriend’s respondent grimace. The Doctor’s pink shorts ride up as she’s locked into her space, and with an arch of her brow, Yaz lifts the spoon to her girlfriend’s lips. “Go on, try it.”

“Yaz — no offence — but it looks like the console room floor after Graham got seasick on those anti-grav canoes.”

“ _Doctor_ ,” Yaz groans, lips pursing. “Come on. You might like it.”

“Has it got pears in it?”

“Why would it —” 

“Pears are evil, Yaz.”

“No, babe. No pears,” Yaz sighs, nudging the spoon closer. The Doctor shivers, top lip curling. She looks a little like a dog given a vegetable after being promised a treat. “If you try this, you can have as many biscuits as you like for the rest of the day.” 

That seems to seal the deal. 

With an exaggerated sigh, the Doctor leans in for a taste. 

She seems to relax as she considers the substance in her mouth, aligning her tastebuds with the new flavours and offering a shrug when she swallows it down.

“Well? What do you think?” Yaz probes, setting the cutlery aside and tucking her hands into the front pocket of the Doctor’s borrowed hoodie for warmth. 

The Doctor slinks an arm reflexively around her shoulders and licks her lips. “Needs more ketchup. Marshmallows, too. Not bad, though. Three out of ten, I reckon.”

Yaz’s parted lips and narrowed brows are comical enough to make her girlfriend laugh, and she wriggles closer in an attempt to brush their lips together. 

“I can’t believe I’m letting you kiss me after you said _that_.”

“You humans and your secular tastes,” the Doctor drawls, letting her forehead come to rest against Yaz’s own. “You’re going to be telling me you’ve never had candyfloss bolognese next.”

“Oh my _god_ ,” Yaz laments in disgust. Her stomach growls in protest and she meets the Doctor’s laughing lips. “Just stop talking. _Please.”_

* * *

“I think you were right,” the Doctor admits as she lounges beside the ship’s third Olympic-sized swimming pool, a navy, rainbow-emblazoned bikini hidden beneath her jumper. 

She watches as Yaz settles her crossed elbows on the edge of the pool beside her to hold herself afloat, slightly out of breath from her routine of laps. “Right about what?”

“Needing some time off — time away from all the running about,” the Doctor supplies, swilling her legs in the water. Fine blonde hairs stand to attention on her thighs where the cool water has splashed her, and she makes a mental note to ask Yaz if she should shave it again soon. 

She doesn’t quite understand human customs around it, but, nevertheless, it _does_ feel awfully smooth afterwards. 

“I think it’s been good for me,” she finishes when she has returned to the present. 

Yaz’s smile is blistering and the Doctor basks in it like a lizard in the sun. “I’m glad you think so,” she breathes, water splashing when she drags her hair from her eyes and reaches for the Doctor’s knee with a damp hand. She tilts her head to let her cheek rest against her elbow, the other hand drawing circles against the Doctor’s knee with her thumb. 

“You know, when we’re back to travelling again, we could always have days like this in between, if you like?” the Doctor suggests, turning her ankle in a slow circle and watching the water swirl and ripple. “Days where we can just relax and take some time to ourselves, you know? Do regular — y’know — girlfriend stuff?” 

“I don’t think anything’s ever going to be _regular_ with you, Doctor,” Yaz laughs, earning a crinkle of the Doctor’s eyes in her returning chuckle. “But yeah— I think I’d like that.”

“Yeah?” the Doctor repeats, lifting her gaze from the rippling water to her girlfriend. “Brilliant.”

“Fancy joining me?” Yaz quips a moment later, pushing away from the edge of the pool to tread water just before her. 

The Doctor purses her lips in thought, glancing between the warmth of her comfort item — Yaz’s hoodie, and the clear, inviting water. She thinks to the skin beneath, the uneven expanse of her stomach compared to Yaz’s toned build. 

“You can keep a t-shirt on, babe.” Yaz prompts gently, nodding towards her change of clothing just off the side. “If you’re worried about what I think you are — which you really _shouldn’t_ be concerned about at all.” 

Cheeks pinkening, the Doctor scratches at the back of her neck before pulling herself up and padding towards the neatly folded clothes. She peels her jumper off in a quick flash of dark green and sweeps a black t-shirt on over her bikini. 

“Incoming!” she calls to her girlfriend seconds before she bolts for the pool and careens, curled into a ball, into the water. 

When she resurfaces, Yaz’s attempt at chiding dissipates quickly into laughter and she swims the short distance separating them to sweep her arms around her. 

“Can you give me a piggyback?” the Doctor quips excitedly, swiping hair from her eyes and blinking through the onslaught of water. “Or can we do handstands? How long can you hold your breath for under the water, Yaz? Have you found the hidden doorway into the freediving area yet?” 

While Yaz works to register all her questions at once, she resigns herself to an afternoon of child’s play. 

So much for a few laps of the pool. 

* * *

As predicted, the Doctor is as clueless in the kitchen as Yaz would be piloting the TARDIS. 

Actually — no. It’s not even cluelessness; it’s pure chaos. 

“Doctor, you’re meant to put _half_ of the sauce in — there’s only two of us.”

“But look at the _colours_ , Yaz.” 

“Yaz?”

“Yeah?”

“When do we put the chocolate sprinkles in?” 

“Doctor, this is a korma.”

“So _after_ the rice has cooked?”

“I adore you but I’m putting you on wash-up duty, babe.”

“Yaz?”

A half-muffled sigh. “Yes, Doctor?”

“I dropped a biscuit.”

“Right, well — pick it up, then—” 

“In the korma. It’s — uh, it’s in with the — with the korma.”

The Doctor hums around her first mouthful under Yaz’s watchful — albeit tired — gaze, brows lifting in approval. “Oh, this is _brilliant,_ Yaz.”

“Thanks, babe,” Yaz replies, visibly relaxing. She digs into the meal without any more hesitation, pleased to find it only a little more spicy than usual thanks to the Doctor’s lack of impulse control. 

“You know what would make it better?” The Doctor sits up, swallowing down her mouthful and reaching into her pocket. 

Before Yaz can stop her, the Doctor sprinkles a mountain of star-shaped decorative hundreds and thousands over the light orange sauce. When she takes a forkful past her lips, Yaz’s groan of distaste is drowned out by the Doctor’s triumphant gasp. “Now _that_ is what I’m talking about, Yasmin Khan.”

Wordless in her exasperation, Yaz shakes her head and sets about finishing her meal before her girlfriend can put her off it even further. 

* * *

“Thank you.” The Doctor’s voice echoes in the expanse of the largest of the ship’s bathrooms. She leans back against her girlfriend’s bare chest in the full tub, lashes fluttering against half-lidded eyes when Yaz works shampoo through her short locks. 

“For what?” Yaz questions softly, paying extra attention to the baby hairs at the back of her neck. She presses her thumbs in slow circles against the skin there, drawing a satisfied sigh from the woman settled between her legs. 

Her thighs bracket her hips and she laughs when the Doctor nudges two of the rubber ducks floating on the surface together, initiating a faux-kiss. 

“For taking care of me, since — y’know,” the Doctor answers, waiting for her cue to lean forward and duck her hair into the lavender-scented water to rinse her mint-infused shampoo free. 

“Of course,” Yaz supplies without hesitation, combing her fingers back through the Doctor’s hair once the soapy lather has mostly disappeared. She slips an arm around her waist, then, dropping her chin to the Doctor’s shoulder and simply taking the opportunity to hold her. “It’s my job, babe. I love you.”

“I know — but I wasn’t exactly honest with you — any of you, before, and I’m sorry,” she sighs, the back of her head meeting Yaz’s collarbone. She glances up into the domed ceiling above, a projection of a starry night filling up the spaces where windows should be. “Thank you for standing by me and looking after me even though I was being selfish and secretive.”

“There’s a difference between being secretive and not being able to process everything that’s happening around you, Doctor,” Yaz argues gently, fingers spanning the space just below her breast. She noses at her neck, cool skin against warm, scented flesh. “It was important to wait until you were ready. We all knew that — there was no point in pushing even more.”

The Doctor sighs at that; in release, in bliss; in adoration. 

Yaz tucks her closer, finding solace in the double-beat just shy of her ear. The water swills and cools, but they remain entwined as one. 

“Yaz?” The Doctor’s voice is a whisper and she turns her head, hazel-green seeking her out. 

Yaz is lazy in her response, blinking at her through a haze of affection. “Yeah?”

“I love you,” the blonde confesses, wet hair clinging to her neck, features bared to her only. 

She doesn’t think she’s ever felt so lucky. Loving the Doctor is easy. Being loved _by_ the Doctor — well, that’s a whole different board game. 

But Yaz has found the missing piece. “I love you too, Doctor.”


End file.
